


You're Better Off Without Him

by sarahandthegraveyardshift



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 17:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19835092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahandthegraveyardshift/pseuds/sarahandthegraveyardshift
Summary: After six-thousand years, it ends like this—with Crowley proclaiming he'll never think of him again and some random stranger deeming the worth of their friendship...well, worthless.[Instead of contacting the Home Office, Aziraphale leaves the bookshop to find Crowley. Crowley leaves his apartment to find Aziraphale after trapping Hastur in Voicemail and instead finds a burning bookshop and no angel. Assumptions are made. Drinks are had. And there's still a world that needs saving. Angst abounds.]





	You're Better Off Without Him

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my goodness, hello!! How are you?? You look amazing today!! I'm so glad you're here!! I've been watching and re-watching and re-re-watching Good Omens many times (like....many, many), and I'm about halfway through the book, and I'm still just in love with these silly boys and their silliness. 
> 
> I hope you all are having a great day!! Thank you for stopping by!!

**1\. “I've been there. You're better off without him.”**

Aziraphale knows the words are meant to be a comfort. But they aren't. In fact, they only manage to make him feel worse. After six-thousand years, it ends like this—with Crowley proclaiming he'll never think of him again and some random stranger deeming the worth of their friendship...well, _worthless._

The angel sighs and starts back towards his bookshop. The visit from his brothers is unexpected and, after the unpleasantly public “break-up” with the demon, rather disheartening. His thoughts race as he gathers what he needs to contact the _Home Office_. He draws the necessary symbols, lights the necessary candles, and takes a breath to recite the necessary words.

But something stops him. 

Crowley's words had hurt— _still_ hurt—but they were said with fear and desperation, like he...cares. Like he cares _a lot_.

And if this attempted communication “goes south,” as the demon might say, and Aziraphale doesn't have a chance to tell him...to tell him how much...Well, it would be a pity that they left things the way they did.

The angel makes a hasty decision and scurries to the telephone, picking up the receiver and pressing it to his ear. No need for dialing. The phone only ever calls one number. 

**2\. “Got an old friend here.”**

Aziraphale sees the smouldering coat on the floor, and his stomach drops out. Holy water (the holiest). And an overpowering odor of demon. Not Crowley, though. Aziraphale knows what Crowley smells like. And the garment by the door is hardly something the demon would dare allow in his closet.

No. Aziraphale would know if Crowley had been wiped out of existence. But finding his dear demon is an entirely different matter altogether.

**3\. “I never asked to be a demon.”**

He does find him eventually. Drunk out of his mind and spilling slurred memories into the bar. No one is listening, of course, but it seems rather careless of the demon to out himself like that. And the things he's talking about...Aziraphale has heard him mutter about _Before_ many times. But never quite so forlornly.

The angel takes a steadying breath and tamps down the sympathy rising in his throat. There will be time for that later. 

Hopefully. 

He sits across from the man and primly straightens his waistcoat before settling his hands in his lap. “Crowley, this is completely inexcusable,” he scolds half-heartedly, watching as the demon sits back in his seat and stares at him with a slack jaw. “I thought I'd gotten you into trouble. You know, we came up with code phrases to use when there is _actual_ danger, not when we're trying to avoid one another.”

He glances around the pub distastefully. This is why they usually drink at his bookshop.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley asks, his tone dazed and almost sad. “Are you here? Am I dreaming? Is this what dreaming feels like?”

The angel sighs in fond exasperation. “Crowley, dear, do try to focus. The apocalypse is hours away. We don't have time for this. We need to get back to my bookshop and—”

“Oh,” Crowley says, and the word feels like agony. Like sadness beyond anything Aziraphale has felt before. “I'm...I'm sorry, angel. Your bookshop, it isn't there anymore. It burned down.”

Cold. Aziraphale has never felt anything like the sensation blooming in his corporeal being, but if he had to describe it, he would say just that: _Cold._

“No, it...I've just left it, how could...”

He reaches out into the world with senses beyond human, searches for faded pages and blurring ink and brittle book spines. And what he finds is smoke and embers and soggy bookshelves. 

“No, no, no,” he murmurs, blinking furiously as his eyes sting. He's never cried before. But if ever there were something to cry about, surely it would be this.

A few tears fall, and he sniffles helplessly. Crowley's hand inches forward across the table but stops midway. 

“Angel, I'm so sorry.”

With a shaky breath, Aziraphale wipes the tears away and pushes his shoulders back. “We'll deal with it later,” he says, though everything in him wants to deal with it _now_. “Oh dear, this will be rather difficult without the book.”

“What book?” Crowley's words are soft, and any other time, Aziraphale would find it endearing. The demon really is, at heart, a kind being, as much as he loathes to admit it.

“The one the young lady with the bicycle left behind. The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of—”

“Agnes Nutter!” Crowley screeches, voice breaking in drunken excitement like he called out the answer to a game show question before the tiny humans on the picture box could. The demon reaches down to the chair beside him and pulls the book in question up for all to see, pointing to the title triumphantly.

“You have it?” Aziraphale asks unnecessarily. Clearly the demon has it, he's waving it in the angel's face like he can't control his arms. The scent of singed pages fills the angel's nose, and he gently takes the book before it gets damaged any further. 

“Souvenir,” Crowley murmurs with a half-shrug. The angel clears his throat and tries very hard not to ponder on the wistful tone. 

“I worked it all out,” he admits with just a hint of guilt, placing the book down on the table—after a hasty check for spilled beverages and sticky spots—and delicately opening the cover. “The antichrist, Adam Young. He lives in a small town not far from here.”

Crowley leans over the table to study the angel's notes and maps. He smells heavily of booze and...tears? And slightly of the aftershave Aziraphale bought him several months ago. “Isn't that the same village where that woman hit my car?”

Aziraphale closes the book. “You mean where _you_ hit _her_ , darling.” The endearment slips out unintentionally, but Crowley doesn't react, so the angel carries on. “The _End of the World_ is set to begin at the Tadfield Airbase, so we need to get a wiggle on.” He stands and waits for the other man to follow. 

Crowley frowns from his chair. “What?”

“Tadfield Airbase,” the angel says loudly and clearly, motioning towards the pub's exit and taking purposeful strides away from the table. “Do sober up, Crowley. We have a world to save.”

“I heard that bit,” the demon grumbles, his chair scraping against the floor as he stands. “It was the 'wiggle on.'”

Aziraphale pointedly ignores the jab and allows a small miracle to push the demon's chair in for him before leaving the pub.

The Bentley is conveniently waiting for them outside in a _No Parking_ zone. 

**4\. “It's on fire, or something.”**

They're trapped on the M25.

They're trapped on the M25 surrounded by a ring of hellfire. 

They're trapped on the M25 surrounded by a ring of hellfire with Mozart, wait, no, that's Freddie Mercury wailing over the stereo.

And there's a man in the backseat that smells of sulfur and rotting intestines. He reaches forward and takes Crowley's sunglasses off, breaking them into pieces. Crowley calls him _Hastur_ , and Aziraphale knows they're in trouble.

“Consorting with an _angel_ ,” Hastur spits. Maggots squirm in his teeth. “You've done it now, Crowley. You'll be dismembered and fed to the hell hounds for this one.”

Crowley's knuckles turn white as his fingers tighten on the steering wheel, and he glances at Aziraphale anxiously. “Do you trust me, angel?” His eyes are bright. Beautiful.

“With my life.” There is no hesitation in the words, and Crowley smiles at him wanly.

“I'll keep you safe,” he promises. 

The car lurches towards the infernal fire.

**5\. “Come up with something, or—”**

“—or I'll never talk to you again.”

It's childish. But it's the most hurtful thing he can think of. After all, when Crowley told him he would never think of him again, it had hurt more than anything the demon had said before.

And, if the demon's reaction tells him anything, Crowley feels the same way. 

Because he _does_ come up with something. 

So, so splendidly.

**6\. “You don't have a side. Neither of us do. We're on our own side.”**

When it's over—really and truly—there is finally time to talk. 

But they don't. Not quite yet.

They lay on Crowley's bed and stare at one another, breathing in the relief of just existing. 

Crowley breaks first. And his sobs are unbearable. Aziraphale can't think to do anything but hold him tight. 

“I thought you were gone,” the demon cries into the angel's shoulder when he can finally form words. “I walked out of that burning bookshop, and all I wanted was to follow you into _Nothing_.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale whispers, fingers running through the demon's wild hair. “Dear, dear Crowley. I will never leave you.”

Crowley lifts his head. “You can't know that. They'll come for us again, eventually. You can't know.”

“I can,” the angel counters, smiling serenely as he wipes under Crowley's puffy eyes with the pads of his thumbs. “I do, my love. _Ineffable Plan_ be damned.”

The demon laughs wetly. “It's not so bad.” He sighs and leans his forehead against the angel's. “And there's always Alpha Centauri.”

“I'll follow you,” Aziraphale promises. “Anywhere. Always.”

Because they—really and truly—are better off together.

**Author's Note:**

> I love them. I love them sooo much. 
> 
> I also love quotes. Sooo much!
> 
> What is your favorite quote from Good Omens???
> 
> I have several, but I think I can narrow it down to two: 
> 
> "I know what you smell like." Crowley says this after Dog has found Adam. He and Aziraphale are having a drink, and he sniffs the air and says that something's changed. Aziraphale tells him his barber suggested a new cologne, and then Crowley says THAT, and it just melts my heart. Because they've known each other for six-thousand years, and even with such a small change, Crowley still knows what Aziraphale smells like...and maybe he even likes the new cologne. :P
> 
> "You go too fast for me, Crowley." This one is soooo sad!! Of course, we all know Crowley drives like a bat out of home (bahaha!), but Aziraphale knows that Crowley lives life much too fast. Like he's trying to drink it all down at once instead of savoring it. Like he knows it's all going to come to an end eventually, so why waste time? D: D: D:
> 
> Anyway! Tell me your favorite! I love inspiration. Have an amazing day, friends!! You deserve good things!! 
> 
> :D


End file.
